A/N: I have lost my inspiration and can't write a single line that I'm pleased with. This one, however, just wrote itself, so I ran along.
Spoiler: up to 3x13
Disclaimer: "The Good Wife" is not mine.
Kalinda saunters into the bar, it is crowded and smoky and dimly lit, but she traces Will immediately, sitting at the end of the bar, his head in his hands, looking like he has been run over by a track.
She shoves her way through the crowd, signals the bartender to bring her a drink and stops next to Will, assessing the situation before she takes the seat next to him.
No one speaks for a few minutes; Will acknowledged her presents by a little tilt of his glass, to which she replied with a little node of her own, but nothing since then.
"Did you do it?", He asks finally, without looking away from his drink.
"Yes".
"Will it be okay?"
"It is hard to tell. It's risky, but I don't think we had any choice".
Will signs, shakes the content of his glass, and swallows it in one gulp, another drink is in front of him before he even put the first one down.
Kalinda looks at him worriedly, it seems like he has been doing it for a while, but he is a big boy, and that is none of her business if he needs to drink himself into oblivion. She can quite understand it given all he has to deal with, it wouldn't be her choice, but everybody deals differently.
Instead she asks him: "How are you holding up".
He laughs a bitter laugh: "Oh, I'm just great, can't you see?" he makes a move to his glass, but then takes his hand back. "All I been working on all my life is in danger, I could end up in prison, and it seems that they will stop at nothing to get to me, so I'm not even sure who I can trust anymore. Yeah, I'm great, me. Never better".
"So nothing new then?", she tries to lighten the mood.
This time his smile is real: "Yeah, nothing new".
The silence falls on them again until Will asks: "Have you ever been in love?"
Kalinda takes a moment to think, Will almost sure she'll just ignore him and they move on, like they always do when he asks something she can't or won't answer. But then he hears a whisper: "I don't know".
Will shakes his head: "If you have, you would know".
To that he gets a much faster reply: "I'm not sure you would".
"You even clearer than you normally are today, don't you? I can almost understand you".
"What will be the fun in that?", She bumps his shoulder.
They return to their drinks, each in his own little world, when he says: "I think I've only been in love once".
"Alicia", that is not a question.
He nods, and then it hits him: "You too, ha?"
Kalinda is trying to reflect, but it is too late, it was too late the moment Will brought up the whole "in love" issue and she choose to answer. So she just shrugs, Letting Will interpret this any way he wants, but knowing deep down it is as good as a straight answer.
"What a pair we are", he laughs, "Like planets around a sun, we can't stop spinning around her."
Now Kalinda is the one that downs her drink and signals for another one. He's right, they can't, she can't. Not at the start, not when Alicia tried to push her away, and not now when Dana used Alicia to give her an ultimatum. But that make them vulnerable, and they can't afford it right now, Will certainly can't. Not that it matters, he knows all that, just like she does, and still he'll put himself on the line for Alicia, and so will she.
"At least you've got your chance", it's barely a whisper, but he hears it anyway.
"Yeah, I did, and then I blew it up".
He looks at her like he sees her for the first time: "Why you don't go for yours?"
"Mine?", Kalinda is playing the dumb, not that it's going to works on anybody that knows her more than a few minutes.
"Your chance", Will plays along none the less.
"It's not a fucking tryout, not everybody gets a chance", she spits angrily.
Will doesn't let go: "Still, it's not like you to wait for anything to happen for you, you usually make it happens".
"You wanna know why I don't hit on Alicia? ", Kalinda is more off balance than he ever saw her.
He gestures with his hand and she goes on: "Because A. she's married. B. She's Straight and C. we work together."
He doesn't buy this: "those really aren't very good reasons because A. not really. B. I'm sure you've been with more than one "then straight" girl and C. really? You give that as a reason?".
Kalinda is looking at him, fire in her eyes: "What do you want? Do you want me to be with Alicia?"
"No, I just want you to tell me the truth about why you don't even try".
She sighs, she lost her defenses a while ago and now she is exposed, but she tells him the truth, her eyes cast downward: "because I can't make her happy, well I can, but only momentarily", she smirks for a second but becomes serious again very quickly: "not for the long haul, not something that will last, I'm not what she needs".
Will is a bit surprised that she did told him the truth, that she opened up like that, and he can't help but feel the same: "Yeah, me neither". He raises his glass and she reciprocates. "Well, not now anyway, maybe somewhere along the road".
Kalinda touches his arm, briefly, no more than a few seconds, but it is enough, and he appreciates the gesture.
"It will be okay", she says softly.
He just nods, not really believing her, but pretending he does, it is better than the alternative.
They both know that they are in trouble, like a sailor in the middle of a whirlpool; you can't go back, just sail through the waves and hope you come out in one piece on the other side.